Now The Shit Is Getting Real

Well, most of us, anyways

16 Anons got arrested today in what is the biggest ever 'hacker sweep' ever by the FBI. Here's the skinny from CNET:

Sixteen people were arrested in the United States today in connection with hacking attacks by the Anonymous group of online activists, as well as one person in the U.K. and four people in the Netherlands, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

An indictment filed last week in San Jose, Calif., names 14 people accused of conspiring to intentionally damage protected computers at PayPal last December in retribution for PayPal suspending WikiLeaks' account to prevent supporters from donating to the whistleblower site. The arrests were made in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio, the DOJ said. The defendants were expected to make initial appearances throughout the day in federal courts in their areas.

In two other separate indictments, a Sarasota, Fla., man was arrested on charges of intentional damage to a protected computer for allegedly accessing the Web site of InfraGard Tampa Bay, an FBI partner, in June. The complaint alleges that he released instructions on how to exploit the Web site.

Another man was arrested in Las Cruces, N.M., for allegedly stealing confidential business information from AT&T servers and posting it publicly in April. The defendant, who works as a customer support contractor for AT&T at outsource provider Convergys, is charged with accessing a protected computer without authorization for allegedly downloading thousands of documents, applications and other files and then posting them on the Internet, the indictment says. The LulzSec hacking group publicized the release of those documents on June 25, according to the filing.

The arrests of the defendants, who range in age from 20 to 42, followed the execution of more than 35 search warrants throughout the country by the FBI as part of the investigation into hacking attacks coordinated by the Anonymous online activist group, officials said. More than 75 searches have taken place in the U.S. to date as part of the investigations, the DOJ said.

There's more but it's all tl;dr. But it is a pretty huge story. Apparently using proxy servers doesn't work as well as advertised. At least, not for everybody. Are the lulz done for good? Stay tuned for Internetquakes.